What is COP 29?
Heard of COP29 but not entirely sure what it is? COP stands for conference of the parties. Most international conventions have a yearly or bi-yearly COP, sometimes this is referred to as the meeting of parties (MOP) or plenary. This meeting is where representatives of Member nation states who have signed a convention (and some observer organisations and non-Member states) meet to discuss and ensure the implementation of the convention’s goals.
Most COPs play the role of the governing body of an international convention and, as such, the conferences are a key opportunity for Member states and stakeholders to hold governments to account for securing a convention’s success, through the negotiation of international guidelines and policies which support the mandate of a convention.
Today, the term “COP” is widely understood in relation to the conference which governs the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC is the foundational framework for international cooperation to tackle the climate crisis – it established agreed principles and objectives, and the details of how these objectives will be achieved are negotiated and determined at the annual COP through subsequent agreements, such as the Paris Agreement in 2015. The UNFCCC opened for signature in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit and entered into force in early 1994. The ultimate goal of the Convention is to ensure the ‘stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.
Thus UNFCCC COPs are the main global climate change summits, and they have taken place on an annual basis since COP1 in Berlin in 1995. This year, COP29 will be taking place in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan from the 11th to 22nd November. Around 50,000 state leaders, policymakers, diplomats, corporate representatives, investors, activists, and NGOs are expected to attend.
From past experience, we know COPs have incredible potential. In 1997, at COP3, the Kyoto Protocol was introduced – requiring “industrialised nations” (now referred to as Global North nations) to limit their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in accordance with individual national targets. Again in 2015, at COP21, the Paris Climate Agreement was agreed upon, setting legally binding new emission reduction goals. The Paris Agreement has in effect superseded the Kyoto Protocol, though the Kyoto is technically still in force. The 196 states who became party to the Paris Agreement agreed to hold ‘the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels’ and pursue efforts ‘to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels’.
Yet, COP29 has already been the centre of some controversy. Despite being the second in a series of three COP summits to ‘reset’ global climate action, it is also the third consecutive COP to be held in an authoritarian state, and the second consecutive COP hosted by a petro-state. Human Rights Watch, Freedom Now and Amnesty International alongside several other international human rights organisations have expressed concern at Azerbaijan’s selection as COP29 host, given the state’s alarming human rights record, especially in regard to the escalating repression of social and environmental activists and state authorised ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Furthermore, the President-Designate of the conference, Mukhtar Babayev, was an oil executive at the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) for over twenty years, and the current president of SOCAR, Rovshan Najaf, was given a place on the COP organising committee earlier this year.
Taken together, the violent suppression and incarceration of environmental activists and the prominent organising positions given to men with strong ties to the oil industry – an industry that would benefit from the failure of the conference – sets a grim and uncertain tone for next week’s negotiations. Indeed, states such as Papua New Guinea and eminent climate activists like Greta Thunberg are boycotting the conference entirely citing the hypocrisy of its organisational composition, and the ongoing human rights violations that the conference is distracting from. Yet, as with every COP win before, we might just be surprised.
It is also important to note that the reason that COP29 is being held in Azerbaijan is that Member states have to bid to host COP, and they largely have to pay for the conference’s organisation from their own national funds. This means that to cover the increasingly high cost of hosting a COP, typically millions of USD, a state has to be relatively wealthy, making it next to impossible for mid to low economy states – those most acutely in need of urgent climate adaptation, mitigation and funding solutions – to host, and bidding attractive to wealthy petro-states, without much of an environmental record, such as Azerbaijan, to improve their international image. One reason for the burgeoning size of UNFCCC COP is the thousands of corporate representatives who attend, often to foil negotiations that would interfere with industry profits. At COP28 for example, 2400 oil lobbyists were admitted – yet, not a single oil and gas company globally has a plan that aligns with the requirements of the Paris Agreement.
One key way to make COP more accessible to the low-income countries that ought to have the loudest voice in negotiations, owing to their extreme climate vulnerability, is reducing the number of oil industry attendees. It is not too late to demand the UK government remove oil lobbyists from the representatives the UK sends to Azerbaijan, and set a precedent for future COPs. Just yesterday 145 UK based organisations issued a letter to Ed Miliband the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, demanding he refuse to allow oil lobbyists in the UK’s delegation. In the last part of this article you can find more ways to get involved and make your voice heard in COP29.
It is no overstatement to say that the decisions made at COP29 will define hundreds of millions, probably billions, of lives in the next year, and determine global climate resilience in this century. COP29 is already being referred to as ‘the Finance COP’, in the next section I’ll explain why this is, and why COP29 is so important.
Why is COP 29 so important?
Climate finance
Before it has even begun, COP29 is being described as ‘the finance COP’. This is because in Azerbaijan, for the first time in 15 years, global representatives will establish a new global climate finance target.
The last global climate finance target was set in 2009, at COP15, when developed countries agreed on the Copenhagen Accord which stated that by 2020 they would collectively mobilise $100 billion every year to support climate mitigation in developing countries. This is because traditionally, wealthy countries have been polluting for much longer, at much higher rates, and have much more money, accumulated from their emissions-driven economies, to cope with climate disasters. Whereas countries in the Global South who are the least responsible for the climate crisis experience the worst effects of it without the resources to fund adaptation solutions, like sea walls, extreme heat adaptations or disaster relief, to improve their climate resilience. The climate finance target is a step towards levelling this inequality.
In 2015, signatories to the Paris Agreement committed to setting a more ambitious ‘new collective quantified goal on climate finance’ (NCQG) to replace and update the aim of $100 billion per year. However, it took until 2022 for the 2009 goal of $100 billion of global climate finance to be met for the first time. It is anticipated that the NCQG will be established in Baku over the coming weeks – this is why COP29 is such an important event in terms of climate finance.
Research by the London School of Economics has suggested that, if the world is to meet the goal set out in the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, climate finance needs to scale up to $2.4 trillion annually by 2030. Without this proactive investment, climate mitigation and repairs will cost up to $1,266 trillion by 2100, assuming warming is limited to 1.5 degrees.
The good news is the money does exist. Since the start of this decade, billionaires alone have accumulated £2.6 trillion in wealth. A recent report by Greenpeace has found that, in the UK, even a temporary 5 year ‘National Renewal Tax’ of 2.5% on individual wealth above £10 million could raise a minimum of £130 billion in the Labour government’s five year term. This tax would be paid by just 0.1% of the UK population and if even a portion were directed towards global the NCQG goal, the required figure would seem a lot less fantastical.
Another expectation for COP29, is that discussions around the NCQG will clarify and increase the role of the private sector in global climate finance. Hopefully in the coming weeks, world leaders will establish policy plans that acknowledge and engage the entire range of financial actors – from institutional and private investors, to banks and multilateral development banks (MDBs). Encouraging and enabling greater private investment in NCQGs, and drafting plans for ensuring this is implemented ethically and transparently will be key at COP29.
A NCQG would provide the economic resource for the nations most vulnerable to the climate crisis to vastly improve their climate resilience, both through facilitating investment in sustainable energy, and enabling them to cope with climate disasters. As the site of the hopefully ambitious new climate finance target or NCQG, COP29 is therefore very important – for all those most vulnerable to climate catastrophe today, and across this century.
COP29 could unlock the potential of carbon markets
Another expected outcome of COP29 is the advancement of the concept of carbon markets. Article 6 of the Paris Climate Agreement set out the potential for voluntary carbon markets to be developed but, in the nine years since, little progress has been made in operationalising them. Essentially carbon markets are trading systems in which carbon credits are sold and bought. Theoretically this means rich nations who want to emit more than their proportional share of carbon, would have to pay a low-emission nation for carbon credit. If practised successfully, a multilateral carbon market could offer a debt-free method to channel economic resources from high emitters to sustainable development in Global South nations. However, it could equally be used to simply displace emissions, greenwash, and move funds into unnecessary and ineffective projects.
COP29, as the second in the series of three COPs focusing on climate finance, is expected to be the site of the negotiations on how to effectively get carbon markets up and running. Hopefully we will see strong guiding regulations developed to operationalise Article 6 in Baku.
Opportunity for bolder Nationally Determined Contributions
Nationally determined contributions or NDCs are states self-determined national climate pledges, as set out in the Paris Agreement. Every five years states party to the treaty need to report on the steps they are taking to help meet the global goal to keep warming under 1.5 degrees, with each submission reflecting increasingly ambitious steps. The next round of NDCs must be submitted by February 2025, just months after COP29. The UNFCCC COP29 is therefore a key opportunity to set a high bar for climate ambition and possibility for the next round of NDCs.
Following the release of the 2024 NDC Synthesis Report in late October, the UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, Simon Stiell released a statement calling for states to commit to far more ambitious NDCs in 2025. He said:
‘Today’s NDC Synthesis Report must be a turning point, ending the era of inadequacy and sparking a new age of acceleration, with much bolder new national climate plans from every country due next year.
The report’s findings are stark but not surprising – current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country.
Bolder new climate plans are vital to drive stronger investment, economic growth and opportunity, more jobs, less pollution, better health and lower costs, more secure and affordable clean energy, among many other benefits.’
If NDC commitments remain at their current level of ambition, the result would be a global temperature rise 2.5 to 2.9 degrees celsius by 2100. In keeping with the finance theme, COP29 is expected to hold discussions on how to encourage private investment in NDCs – an essential step if they are to succeed. As the International Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) have highlighted, ‘insufficient finance for developing countries’ mitigation and adaptation efforts risks undermining their NDC ambition, delaying global climate action, and posing long-term systemic risks to global financial stability, impacting investor returns’ (Griffa, 2024).
Therefore, it is important that at COP29 investors are made fully aware of the stakes of the climate crisis and the investment risks and opportunities attached. It is essential that investors, including private sector actors, are effectively engaged in the benefits of funding climate solutions and bridging the climate finance gap. As noted above, failure to do so will, over time, cost much more.
Some states are set to announce their updated NDCs at COP29, ahead of the 2025 deadline. Hopefully these will set the tone and precedent for bold and ambitious climate action across the globe. And hopefully, the NCQG established will be sufficiently aspirational and implemented successfully, to fund them.
How can you get involved in COP29 from home?
It is important that governments understand that urgent climate action and funding are priorities for the people they represent at COP. Fortunately, there are several ways to get involved and share your concerns and priorities ahead of and during COP29.
Firstly, you can sign up here, to find a group to plan activities and actions with, calling for bold climate action from state representatives, ahead of November 11.
Secondly, you can sign 350.orgs open letter calling on the COP29 President to remove the head of Azerbaijan’s lead oil manufacturer, SOCAR, from the COP organising committee. Given the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels, and the extreme harm and increasing loss of life caused by their continued use, it’s time to weaken not strengthen the oil lobby’s role in planning global climate solutions.
Thirdly, sign this petition to call on the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to commit to no new oil and gas, a Just transition, and a drastic scale up of climate finance. Despite the UK having lost its climate leadership status last year, it is still important for Global North nations to set precedents acknowledging their disproportionate responsibility in causing the climate crisis and commit to ambitious and tangible amends, setting an example for others at COP29 to follow suit.
Finally, on November 16, right in the middle of COP29 negotiations, there is going to be a Global Day of Action for Climate Justice. Follow organisations such as Climate Justice Coalition, Pop4Climate, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil to hear updates on where and when groups local to you are organising. We need to show the world leaders in Baku that the time for talk is over, and the time for urgent adaptation measures, and the finance to fund them, is now.
Be Curious:
- Ask yourself if you could get involved in local actions demanding bold plans for global climate finance and justice this COP and beyond?
- Read this excellent in depth summary of what to expect from COP29.
- Watch live streamed talks and recorded side events direct from COP29 to keep up with the action.
- Learn from Friends of the Earth’s new Money Movers scheme about how you can use your personal finance, such as your pension, to help finance a global just transition!
Featured image by Nahid Elimemmedov via Pixabay.
